I got out of the house around, I believe, 5:00pm on Friday, and proceeded to do some shopping for lights.

Obviously, not a lot, because there's only so many places you can go that late. I dropped by Guitar Center, talked to the manager there, and mostly came to the conclusion that Guitar Center isn't a good place to buy DJ lighting (big surprise).

Then I got to Dynamic Sound & Lighting just before they closed. They'd gotten good Yelp reviews, and for good reason. Some awesome effects, and the one guy in the store (who obviously wanted to close up) took a lot of time to demonstrate what they had. They also have a very reasonable rental program. So I texted Dev, to find that he'd gone out earlier in the day and purchased some.

Oh well. Turned out later that he'd bought a package - which was likely a reasonable price, since it included a truss - with an OK moonflower, a gator light (I'm bloody sick of gator lights), and a couple of strobes (and I've never liked strobes). Whatever - he had lighting, it was affordable, and I now know where to go.

Then I dropped by Fry's, and grabbed some stuff for the various computer projects. Hopefully I got the right RAM for gridlore and kshandra, since I've sent in a UPC for the rebate already...

And then up the peninsula to Mariner's Point for Purple's show - I'd told Dev I was likely going, and we needed to talk for a bit.

I was also hoping to run into Melanie, since she goes there frequently. No Mel, but it turned out that Dev had brought a crew, including raven2000. It turned into a very entertaining evening.

The truly unexpected thing of the evening - believe it or not - was Robin. When I last filled in for Purple, Robin, well, didn't like me very much. She doesn't approve of the way I run my rotation. I suspect, quite honestly, that she wouldn't approve of the way most anyone runs their rotation on a crowded night.

There's a certain type of customer that is always positive that you're playing favorites. Frequently, in order to shut them up, one will actually bend the rules a little bit for these people. This, somehow, makes them even more certain that they're being cheated.

Robin is one of those.

The last time I was up there, she completely ignored me, which I figured was the best I could hope for. Last night, she suddenly dragged me up to sing with her, and I almost ended up giving her a ride home. I keep suspecting that having a girl in my lap made me more interesting.

April doesn't work on Fridays, so I dropped by IHOP on the way home. I was reminded that one of the reasons I don't go there much any more is that it's a friggin' icebox.

Then home and some fooling around online. I finally got around to researching Kindle stuff for my dad, then crawled into bed around 7:00am.

And back up at 3:00pm, as fast a job as I could manage of getting ready, and then up to the Dome around 4:30pm. Since it was wet outside (they'd been living inside the cloud cover for three days), they didn't have as much for me to do - my only task for the evening was grating cheese. Granted, a lot of cheese.

A pleasant dinner, and then back down the hill at 9:30pm - and on to Dev's party. Interesting experience.

It would have been nice if someone had pointed out that it was an 80s theme party. Not that I dressed all that differently in the 80s, mind you.

I sighed at the lighting (it was, at least, adequate), and kind of tsked at the DJ. First of all, whether from bad speakers or bad mixing, he had no high frequencies at all. Lots of good bass, which is a vital thing, but it was frequently very hard to figure out what song was playing. Much like trying to listen to music through a subwoofer. I suspect exactly like trying to listen to music through a subwoofer.

Then the mixing, which was, well... Starting up song 2 while song 1 is winding down, then sliding the crossfader over? Anyone can do that. Hell, Winamp can do that. Not only was there no even vague attempt at beatmatching, but there wasn't even much of an attempt to keep a reasonably consistent beat from song to song.

Then most of the song selections weren't all that danceable. Granted, he was taking a lot of requests, but it seemed like every fifth song or so he'd play something with a reasonable beat - and the dance floor would fill up until the end of that song.

And then empty back out.

Nothing terrible, mind you. Just a really strong case of "I could do better."

Otherwise, kind of a random evening. I didn't know most of the people there, so I largely just wandered around. She-whose-name-must-not-be-spoken was busy working, so there wasn't much chance for contact there.

Random stuff. There was this cute little blond thing that I'd last seen the last time I went to Effie's. Both times she's introduced herself as "used to go to Creekside," but I still don't know her name. Apparently she's been pestering Dev to do Tuesday karaoke, which is just funny.

So some conversation there. And a little bit elsewhere. And some watching of Back to the Future. And mostly looking like a wallflower. At least I do less of it than I used to.

Around 1:00am or so, there was apparently some drama involving the one drunk guy (there's always that one drunk guy), and some decision made by She-whose-name-we-do-not-speak that conflicted with Dev's wishes. She was feeling pretty awful about this, and walked me out of the place around 1:30am, before going and hiding in her room.

It's been very odd. In the last two days, I've seen her exhibit contrition, embarrassment, and self-doubt. These are not standard characteristics...

Not to mention that it's completely unfair of her to act endearing.

At that point, I just headed home and crashed. Much with the sleepiness. I woke back up arond 7:30am, did some of the usual surfing, and now I'm goin' back to bed. I mean, really - it's before noon, and I'm awake. This is just wrong.